Gewehr 29/40 Mauser

Over the next couple weeks we will be looking at several Polish firearms, and the first one is today: the G29/40. When German forces overran the arms factory in Radom, Poland, they captured in nearly completely intact. One of the guns being produced there had been the wz. 29; a Polish version of the K98k Mauser. The guns were so similar that the German occupation administration put the Steyr company in control of the plant and restarted production to use the parts that were already on hand.

The resulting rifles were designated G29/40 (29 from the Polish designation and 40 form the year German production began). They were in every way the equal of German K98k rifles, but still officially 2nd tier rifles because of their foreign origin. As a result, they were issued to branches of the German military which did not typically have high priority for new small arms, like the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. There are several versions with different markings, which we will discuss in the video...